The first Mary Poppins book was published in 1934.
Though Walt Disney first began petitioning P.L Travers for the rights to turn her book into a film, she didn't grant permission until 1961. In the end, she hated the movie.
At the time the Mary Poppins film was shot, it was the most expensive production of the Disney Studios and it remained the top grossing film for Disney for 20 years.
The Richard and Robert Sherman, known colloquially as "The Sherman Brothers", had been writing music for the film for almost two full years before finding out that Walt Disney had not even secured the rights to make the film. In all, they wrote 30 songs of which about 20 were not used. Some of these songs originally written for Mary Poppins showed up later in Bedknobs & Broomsticks and The Jungle Book.
The song, "Let`s Go Fly A Kite" was inspired by the Sherman Brothers` father, Al Sherman who made kites for neighborhood kids as a weekend hobby. In the film, the broken kite represents the broken family.
Walt Disney's favorite song was "Feed the Birds". He had the Sherman Brothers play it for him every day.
Mrs. Banks`s first name was originally Cynthia. It was changed to the "more British-sounding" Winifred at P.L. Travers`s request.
Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke were not the first considered for the roles of Mary and Bert. Angela Lansbury and Bette Davis were both considered for Mary while Cary Grant was considered for Bert. It wasn't until Richard Sherman saw Julie Andrews perform a song from Camelot on the Ed Sullivan Show that she was thought of at all.
There are over 240 costumes in our production of Mary Poppins.
We could not begin construction on the major set pieces for our production until the 30th of March because of a previously booked date on the 29th for the symphony. One of those pieces is 24 feet long!
The licensing for Mary Poppins the Musical did not become available until October 20th of 2014. Like Julie Andrews, it wasn't the original choice for the musical this year. The show was supposed to be Jesus Christ Superstar.
The color pallette for Mary Poppins is much darker but more complex than Shrek's was when it comes to lighting. We will use medium grey, natural grey, blush pink, no color blue, mist blue, light sky blue, mayan sun & pale amber color filters.
Given the recent conversion of LED cyc lights, we've gone from using 15,000 watts of light on our cyc to a max of 800 watts for Mary Poppins. That's a HUGE difference in electricity and heat throw!
